October Entry
Lesson:  Crazy Compounds
Anticipation of Lesson 
I used the lesson plan on “Crazy Compounds”.  As I read over this lesson, I was excited about incorporating the lesson into my curriculum as an extension of what we were already working on.  We had briefly talked about the idea of compound words and I could tell that the children needed extra instruction in this area.  I liked this lesson plan, but made a few adjustments to accommodate my children’s limitations and needs.  I have used my computer a great deal within my classroom already, so the use of the computer in a lesson was not foreign.  My kids love it when we do whole group lessons on the computer, so I knew they would be receptive to this lesson. 

Reflection of Lesson 
My kids, being the short persons they are, could not reach the large computer screen to underline the compound words.  This being the case, we wrote the sentences together using Word, but then the children copied the sentences onto their handwriting paper, and underlined the words on their own.  My kids love to write and they needed extra practice with their handwriting, so this change worked out very well.  I have a very small classroom (14 students) and I only had two small dry erase boards, so I divided the classroom into two groups, had a group leader, and added more riddles to the game.  This worked out better for my classroom.  By the end of the game, they had the hang of compound words.  After checking their independent work, I could access that the lesson had been a success. 

Student Attitude 
I am lucky in that I have a group of students this year that is very receptive to learning.  This is always exciting, but they get especially excited with anything that is a game or group activity.  When my children started writing on the dry erase boards, I could sense some anxiety.   I realized that they were worried about spelling the words incorrectly. After I stressed that spelling did not matter since we had not seen some of the words before, they seemed to be more at ease.  I instructed them to work together in their groups to try to figure out the best spelling they could.  It was exciting to see them sounding out the words, and doing a great job. 
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November Entry
November 4, 1998
I am participating in the Postcard Geography Internet Project.  When I signed up, I was signing up for the spring session since the web site indicated that the deadline for fall session was past.  Soon after signing up, our classroom started receiving postcards from around the world.  Although thrilled, I also panicked.  I hadn’t even sent home a letter to parents about our participation since I thought I had plenty of time to prepare for this project.  Now I am in the process of figuring out ways to raise money for stamps. I have shared the postcards with my children, and we are planning different ways to make postcards and what kind we should send.  My children are very excited about the project, as am I.    Hopefully we will start sending out postcards within the next couple of weeks.
 We do a newspaper titled “Freshour’s Flashed” at least biweekly in our classroom.  I started this last year in my class and continued it with this year’s class.  The children love it.   Each child gets a copy of the paper to take home.  They like sharing events that are happening at school with their parents at home, and it enables the children to read new material with their parents.  They especially love it when we incorporate pictures taken with the digital camera and their own faces are in the news. 
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December Entry 
 During the month of November, I had a difficult time getting everything done that I was supposed to, but I did have an opportunity to incorporate a lesson plan that I had gotten off of the Internet.  I used a lesson plan form the “Ask Eric” web site titled “Sparkle A Spelling Game”.  Since I have a small classroom, and they are very well behaved, games are usually very successful with my students this year.  This game was a huge success.  Once every three weeks, we have a review of two spelling lists combined.  This gives the children a total of sixteen words to be responsible for.  For my more advanced students, I sometimes feel that they become bored with the review week, and for my more challenged students, the number of words seems almost overwhelming.  This game made reviewing and remembering the words more fun and not as big of a challenge for my students. 
 Our newspaper is still a highlight of our day.  My students love seeing their ideas in a newspaper format, and they especially love when we take pictures with the digital camera.  Our newspaper has proven to be an excellent way to spark communication between parent/child about school activities, and has been a great way to inform parents about school events.
 I have not used a Cyber Ambassador yet, but plan to do so in the near future.  It has been hard to schedule a good time to do so. 
 I am a huge fan of the “Magic School Bus” software line, and chose to check out the one that our classroom did not already have titled “Inside the Earth”.  We had been talking about temperature in our classroom, and this program was an excellent way to reinforce what we had been learning.  My children love all of the “Magic School Bus” programs. 
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January Entry
 Since our last Cyber Exchange meeting, I have used new information that I learned about using my e-mail.  We had learned how to create subject folders within our inbox to help organize our mail.  Organization with my e-mail was previously a problem since I use e-mail so frequently as a means of communication.  I created two new folders (messages about Cyber Exchange, and messages concerning my Internet project titled Post Card Geography).  I found that I could quickly find letters that I need to refer to when put in their appropriate folders, and I can quickly delete unwanted mail in my inbox folder without loosing important letters. 
 I finally had an opportunity to use our schools Cyber Ambassadors.  Finding the time to use them before the break was almost impossible since our fifth grade was moving their classroom to get ready for the new construction of our school.  It was a very hectic time, but we did manage to have the three ambassadors from the fifth grade for a day in our classroom.  They worked with my students to create the newspaper for the day.  I gave them the freedom to come up with the daily newsworthy topics, and told them to play the role of teachers with my students.   At first both my students and the fifth graders were apprehensive, but they eventually warmed to each other and information began to flow.   The ambassadors did a terrific job, and my students were very receptive (of course!).
The end result was a newspaper that was more word for word what my students said rather than their thoughts as seen through my eyes.  I loved it! 
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February Entry 

     Our school has adopted the program "Character Counts" as part of our curriculum this year.  As this is a school wide project, we have found many ways to integrate the different aspects of good character into our interaction with other classrooms, and our daily interaction with all of our staff members. 
     Our classroom used ICQ to chat with other classrooms in our school to discuss our ideas of respect.   Since we had the ability to involve more than just one classroom in our discussion, we chatted with several classrooms at once.  The children loved hearing the ideas of other children within our school (especially that of older students).  They also enjoyed sharing their ideas, and getting positive responses from their schoolmates.
     Our Postcard Geography Internet Project is going great!  We are learning so much about other states in our country.  The kids look forward to receiving post cards, and we look up facts about the states when we have time.  My father is a world traveler, so he has many pictures of different parts of the country, and many other countries.  This has been an excellent avenue for discussions of other cultures and regions. 
     I have been trying to use technology as a tool for improving my students' creativity.  We have been using Storybook Weaver, and other similar programs to create our own stories.  As my personal artistic abilities are not that great, I love the illustrations that these programs provide. (I'm sure my children do as well!  ? )  I have been able to see a big improvement in their person journals, and they do not seem as apprehensive about making up their own stories.
      We are still doing our classroom newspaper, but not as frequently as before since we have started using more and more software.  I am trying my best to use technology as much as I can without neglecting the basic skills.  My objective is to enhance the teaching of the basic skills through technology, and I feel that our classroom is doing that effectively.
to chat with other classrooms in our school to discuss our ideas of respect.   Since we had the ability to involve more than just one classroom in our discussion, we chatted with several classrooms at once.  The children loved hearing the ideas of other children within our school (especially that of older students).  They also enjoyed sharing their ideas, and getting positive responses from their schoolmates.
      I have not had a lot of luck with our Cyber Exchange Ambassadors.  We have tried to work out times for them to come to our classroom, but we have very conflicting schedules, but we are still trying to make something work.  Hopefully we will be able to find a compromising time in the near future.
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March Entry

 Since our last Cyber meeting in February, I have used three power point presentations in my classroom.  Two which I had created, and one that I had downloaded from our Cyber Exchange web site.  It was great to use one that I had not made.  I am excited about more being added to the web site thus giving me more selection.  I am still working on a PowerPoint presentation on an author of children’s books.  The kids love the PowerPoint  presentations and are very captivated by them.
 Our Internet project is slowly being completed.  I am waiting for a wall map of the United States to enhance this project.  My principal is working on getting one for our classroom.  When we get one, we are going to place our post cards on the corresponding states from which they came.
 I have really enjoyed watching my students learn to use their imaginations more.  Using the programs Storybook Weaver, and other programs that help them generate stories, they have become more confident in creating stories.
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April Entry
I have not had the opportunity to work with our school's Cyber Ambassadors.  Their times of availability conflicted with my Physical Education time slot, so I am not able to utilize their help.  Hopefully, I will be able to work something out with next year's Cyber Ambassadors.
 I still have not been using the laptop since I have my computer at home.  Since I have ICUII and PowerPoint on my home computer, I did not really need to use the laptop, and it gives the other teachers more time to use it.
 We have been working on our classroom web page.  The students have been deciding what information they each want to share about themselves, but we haven't uploaded anything on the web yet.  I did not successfully upload what I had already completed at our last meeting, and need to get some assistance uploading to Geocities.
 Our Classroom Newspaper is a big success.  We try to do a newspaper almost every day, and they look forward to deciding the "newsworthy" topics of the day.  Parents have expressed how they enjoy reading these with their child, and how the newspaper sparks conversation about school with their child. 
 I am working on making a wall map of the United States to display in the hallway of our school.  We are going to put the postcards we have received through this project on display with a string pointing out the location of origin of each card. 
 The children have become very aware of the use of the World Wide Web as a research tool.  For example, while reading a story about prairie dogs, my students wanted to go search for a picture of a prairie dog on the computer.  They have realized that we can find out so much information on about any topic that we are discussing.
 I have learned to spend more time outside of the structured classroom time browsing for different things on the web, rather than while the children are sitting in-group at the computer.  While MY attention was being held, my children became restless if the searching process was taking too long.  This has helped minimize "dead" time at the computer.  Having a computer at home has helped tremendously. 
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May Entry
Our classroom participated in the Postcard Geography Internet Project.  I believe that this particular Internet project helped my students become more aware of the world outside of the Talbott community.  It is hard for first graders to comprehend anything outside of their small world, and this project enhanced my teachings of "global awareness".  They looked forward to each new post-card we received, and as a class, we would search on the Internet for more information about each place of origin.  Since the post-cards were written by other children around the country, my boys and girls enjoyed reading the words of other children their own age.  They were eventually able to independently look up different states on our U.S. Atlas (CD-ROM).   We found many web sites that we visited on a regular basis.  Among those that we frequently visited were ones on the local weather, and news web sites that were primarily for children.  Although I used my computer during the 1997-1998 school year, I found this year to be more productive as far as time spent on the computer since I have become more familiar with the implementation of technology within my classroom.

Cynthia and I created a lesson plan together on the comprehension of word order in sentences.  One of the hardest things for first graders to understand is that the syntax of a sentence can be changed while the semantics remain the same.  At the beginning of the lesson, the students were supplied with words that could be arranged in different ways to have the same meaning.  I wrote the words on sentence strips and gave them to different groups.  For example, when given the words Rachel, my, is, and name, the groups could arrange a sentence that read "My name is Rachel" or "Rachel is my name".  Working "hands on" with the words and in a group helped them with this concept.  We created a lesson plan on Microsoft Word in which the students were to figure out what word was missing from sentences such as: Outside it is raining.  It is raining ___________. 

In my classroom, I use email and ICQ on a daily basis.  E-mail and ICQ have become excellent ways in which I communicate with my colleagues.  Since all of the teachers at my school have access to a computer, we are able to communicate quickly using ICQ.  In my classroom, we have used video conferencing only a few times.  My children love to videoconference on ICUII, but it requires a great deal of planning and preparation.  We videoconferenced with a firefighter in California.  He was located in a fire station, and took my children for a tour in the fire station.  He showed them the equipment that fire fighters wear, and discussed the purpose and importance of each item with them.  They were dumbfounded by the concept of talking to someone "through the computer". 

I have developed several PowerPoint presentations this year, and have used a few others that I found on the Cyber Exchange web site.  My children were having difficulty with the concept of place value (tens and ones).  I created a PowerPoint presentation that I thought would be entertaining enough to captivate my children's attention.  The presentation enhanced what they had previously learned in class, and enabled them to practice this concept on their own.  We use Word to do our classroom newspaper.

Throughout this year, we have found many ways in which to integrate technology within the classroom.  Through the implementation of our classroom newspaper, the children were able to read more with their parents, share more about daily school activities with their parents, and it enabled them to see their own thoughts displayed in print.  Doing our daily newspaper allowed me to better understand my students' comprehension of what we were learning in class, and sparked many interesting discussions.  Now that we are at the end of the school year, my students have become very comfortable with expressing their own ideas, and not as apprehensive as they were earlier in the year. 

The monthly training sessions have helped me immensely!  It helps to have an allotted time that I can discuss ideas and problems that I have with technology with my peers.  Since the teachers that I meet with teach the same grade level, we can relate to each other.  Many of their ideas have helped me enhance my curriculum.  Connie is such a great teacher, and she helps greatly when I don't understand something about a program, etc.  It has been comforting to me to know that she is so readily available whenever I need help with something in technology.

I have not been using the laptop since I have my computer at home.  Since I have ICUII and PowerPoint on my home computer, I did not really need to use the laptop, and it gives the other teachers more time to use it.

I have not had the opportunity to work with our school's Cyber Ambassadors.  They were only able to come to my classroom on two different occasions.  Their times of availability conflicted with my Physical Education time slot, so I am not able to utilize their help.  Hopefully, I will be able to work something out with next year's Cyber Ambassadors.

The children have become very aware of the use of the World Wide Web as a research tool.  For example, while reading a story about prairie dogs, my students wanted to go search for a picture of a prairie dog on the computer.  They have realized that we can find out so much information on about any topic that we are discussing.  Doing our daily newspaper has helped in the aspect that it is wonderful when the children are able to see their own words in print.  This has improved their spelling, and their reading.  They have become more confident in expressing their ideas.

The most beneficial aspect of participating in this project has been learning how to implement and use all of the different programs such as Word, PowerPoint, Netscape Composer, etc.  I have learned enough to be able to create my own web page, PowerPoint presentations, etc.  This confidence has enabled me to want to do more with computers within my classroom.

My principal evaluated me doing a PowerPoint presentation with my class.  He was impressed with my work, and wanted me to share this with other members of our staff.  We had a meeting in which I showed them some PowerPoint presentations.  They loved this teaching tool, and they are now creating presentations of their own. 

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